(Closed) Do you believe in shettles method? Personal experiences?

The theory is that male sperm are faster than female sperm, and that male sperm die faster, while female sperm are slow moving but live longer. Therefore if you have sex several days before O you are more likely to conceive a girl, whereas if you have sex close to ovulation you are more likely to have a boy.

MissGeeBee: I recently read a book that said this worked backwards to the way the it’s intended. And that it was something like only 60% accurate. (The book was the impatient woman’s guide to getting pregnant.)

In talking about it, we realized that right now we have zero preference. One of us would argue for one sex, as soon as the other started to agree we’d flip sides!

MissGeeBee: From what I’ve read it doesn’t really work. However, we had sex every other day and then right before I think I ovulated (based on a OPK) we did it twice in two days- I had a boy so I guess it “worked” for us, although we weren’t trying for a boy, just trying for a baby 🙂

I don’t think it works. From research, it seems there is no statistically significant difference between the chances of having a girl or boy based on timing of sex (meaning, it’s still basically 50-50 – the best I’ve seen is maybe giving you a 2% boost in your chance of having what you’re trying for).

For us, we’ll see (our anatomy scan is in mid-November), but we had sex on ovulation day and the day before, then also 3 and 4 days before, so theoretically I’d think that balances out the chances (there could have been those longer lasting X sperm waiting on ovulation day, plus those faster Y sperm getting in there right at ovulation time). But, yeah, I don’t believe it really makes any difference – you have essentially a 50-50 shot of getting either.

I think we had sex about 3-4 days before I ovulated (based on my ultrasound, not charting) and we have a girl. I’m not sure if it works, I’d guess there might be a slight increase in your chance but I doubt it’s a very big increase.

I know this post is a week old, but I just stumbled across it and had to comment anyway!

I’m in a pregnancy group on FB, and there are four of us due around the same time (curently 26 weeks). Based on the Shettles Method, all four of us should be having the opposite sex that we’re actually having. It’s kind of funny, because I really, really wanted a boy, and I’m pregnant with a girl, and one of the other women (who is about a week behind me) really, really wanted a girl and is having a boy.

While the idea seems to make sense, it doesn’t seem that it really makes much of a difference in practice.